Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Why "pinkmonkeybird"?

If you've been reading this blog this past week, you know that I'm changing the emphasis of this blog to a local focus. I also thought about ditching this blog in order to be rid of a name that sounds like a leftie-liberal blog, and then creating a new blog with a more "Republican" name. I never quite got far enough in that process to conjure up possible names. But could anything be more fun than naming your band or naming your blog? At one time I thought the ultimate name for a blog might be Blog Zeppelin. I'd be surprised if someone in the world has not already taken that one. Well then, color me surprised. I'll never forget the look on his face when I confided with Ed Morrissey of my Blog Zeppelin idea. It didn't do anything for him. He yawned, I think.Let's see...what might be some good names for a Republican blog? Just shooting from the hip here....City On A Hill....Rail Splitter...whatever.Groucho once asked, "Why a duck?" And now I have to ask, "Why pinkmonkeybird?" It began as my user name in BowieNet. I got it from Bowie's song, Moonage Daydream. But it's got that pink -femme sound to it and I think it understandably confuses people. But I've decided to keep it as a subversive name.

Here's the angle; I made the mistake of believing that America could "afford" liberalism as a guiding philosophy. After all, we won WWII. We won the Cold War. The United States became the world's sole superpower. If we can't afford liberal policies now, then when? We had no enemies. Why should we need a strong military?I should also point out that I didn't think about politics very much at all. I was more concerned with cultural activities...movies, music, women, baseball and so on. Well, all that changed on 9/11/01. That's when I realized that everything's seeming peacefulness was really just an illusion. I was very impressed, though I did not vote for him, with George W. Bush's leadership as president. And then when W proposed "regime change" in Iraq, I knew he was right. The Democrats initially supported W's action on Iraq, but as we all know now, that didn't last long. And that's when something stirred within me that caused a whole new reevaluation of my perspective of my country and the world and my place in it.

Flash back to my high school years; I was chapter leader of Young Americans for Freedom. That was 1972. Back in those days, I thought it was important to stand firm against International Communism. I was proud to be an American and thought that despite her faults, America was the best country on earth. I subscribed to National Review magazine. I even saw William F. Buckley speak at a sponsored event. Oddly, while Governor Ronald Reagan was on YAF's National Advisory Board, I'll never forget noting that my State Chairman and other MN YAF officers thought Reagan was too far-right and gave the organization a bad name. I have no doubt that those officers quickly changed their minds when Reagan became president.

So, in my early youth, I had the seeds of patriotism within me. But years of college and rock bands and film crews and Minnesota lifestyle gradually turned me into somewhat of a Democrat/Independent liberal. Nixon's fall from grace and his resignation helped convince me that I wanted little to do with the GOP. I never did see Reagan's greatness until very recently this past year when the state funeral prompted me to revisit his accomplishments. I'm not proud to say that I voted for the wrong man many times. I voted for Carter, Clinton, Mondale, Jackson. In 2000 I voted for Nader/LaDuke as what I thought of as a "protest vote". I didn't like Bush or Gore, so I voted Green Party knowing full well that they would never win.

And that brings me up to our current times. My youthful patriotism was reawakened in 2001. As I became acquainted with the Republican platform and philosophy and began to realize that deep down, I hold those same ideals. These are ideals of individualism and opportunity. I just had to blow the dust away that had settled on my inner beliefs in order to recognize they were still there.

So, yes, pinkmonkeybird is a leftie-liberal sounding name for a blog. But the reader has to dig a little deeper to see that the name is reference to a formerly lost pathway. I'm a former Democrat-Independent living in Uptown Minneapolis. Like Reagan, I changed my party. I think there may be other former liberals living next door as my neighbors. If I changed from pink to red (Republican), so can my neighbors. I want to use this blog to try and help bring the Republican message to Uptown.

4 Comments:

I too use an odd sounding Bowie referenced blog title for a political forum ( Moonage Political Webdream ). What I like about it is that it doesn't pin me down to anything. I've never felt that if you are truly politically involved you're going to be 100% anything. You may be more Republican than Democrat, but you're still going to have opinions that differ from the RNC. I have a bunch myself. I'm too conservative for the neo-cons on a lot of issues, and probably too liberal for the left-wing on some. Moonage just lets me meander around the political spectrum in all its glory. If you went by RightWingMonkeyBird, those forays into the more liberal views you might have with some minor issues would confuse and probably lose some of your readers. Stay pink.

About Me

I earned a B.A. in Media Arts at Metropolitan State University. I dislike cars and while I have a driver's license, I haven't owned a car for 20 years or so. I get around by bus, LRT, bicycle and walking.
Politically, I've been an independent most of my life, whilst leaning most often toward the Democratic Party, or as we call it in MN, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. But I was very much impressed with President Geo. W. Bush's leadership in the wake of the horrible attacks on America on Sept. 11, 2001. Likewise, I was appalled at what I see as the lack of competence on this issue, coming from the Democrats. So I have become a Republican.

quod erat demonstrandum

Disclaimer; IMHO, a blogroll should not be as fat as a telephone directory. I wish I could put everyone I like to visit in here.
But I've pared it down in order to have some relevance.P.S. If you are a blogger who has a blogroll as fat
as a telephone book, and pinkmonkeybird is in it,
please don't cut me loose. Please!